When is it not enough to fulfil one’s legal obligation? When failing to go beyond legal requirements results in gross moral failures, such as harm to vulnerable people.
That’s the lesson learned by Joe Paterno, legendary coach of Penn State football team. He was fired last week because he fulfilled his legal obligation, but not his moral one, in not reporting known sexual abuse allegations against one coach in the Penn State football locker room.
Eight boys were allegedly sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky, one of Paterno’s former assistants, since 2002. Sandusky allegedly sexually abused a naked boy in the locker room shower at Penn State, as witnessed by a graduate student. The graduate student reported the incident to Paterno, who fulfilled his legal obligation at the time by reporting it to his superiors.
Likewise, his superiors fulfilled their legal obligation by not reporting the allegations because the child himself did not report the incident – a loophole in the law, which was tightened in 2007 following the Philadelphia Catholic archdiocese abuse scandal.
Since the incident occurred before 2007, the authorities of the university were under no legal obligation to report the incident. But as truth always has a way of emerging its illustrious head, the moral obligation to report the allegations trumped the legal one in the Penn State fiasco.
So why must Joe go?
Many Canadian are undoubtedly in the dark about the legend of Joe Paterno. He is legendary precisely because he always upheld the deepest values despite any short-term costs incurred in the name of doing the right thing. He would bench star football players in playoff games because they had violated even minor rules of the team. He believed and lived by the highest standards of integrity and instilled those standards into the fabric of formal and informal culture of Penn State.
For such a man to turn his back on the vulnerable in his care is unconscionable. His being unseated is absolutely the right thing to do and it shows that the culture of the university, in the end, superseded the very man who created it – and that’s why Joe must go.
This case is a perfect example of when fulfilling one’s legal obligations is simply not enough. We will all one day be tried in the court of truth and all the justifications in the world that we were good citizens in the eyes of the law will not be enough to squash the impenetrable scales of justice. This case is a warning to all of us. Moral codes trump legal ones. Our decisions to act or not act should be based upon principles of integrity and not upon the easiest and most justifiable ways out of difficult and embarrassing situations.
Sharon Ryan teaches ethics for UCLA, Extension. [email protected]
